The November 2018 Square Print Sale, presented by Magnum Photos and Aperture, brings together over 100 images to explore perspectives on transition and transformation in photography. Here: Crossing in the Ginza district. Tokyo, Japan, 1996, by Harry Gruyaer. “Since my first trip to Tokyo in 1996, Japan has fascinated me. You have an incredible sense of security: school children take the metro by themselves, you feel you could leave your camera in a phone booth and still find it there if you came back a few days later. There is also such a sense of discipline, like at this crossing where everybody waits patiently for the lights to change. Something else about Japan: nobody looks at you. It’s paradise for a photographer, but after a while you wonder if you still exist”. (Photo by Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos)





Pájaros en el poste, carretera a Guanajuato (Birds on the post, highway to Guanajuato). Mexico, 1990, by Graciela Iturbide. “I was in my car on the highway to Guanajuato, and suddenly I saw this flock of birds. I love birds, for me they represent freedom”. (Photo by Graciela Iturbe/Courtesy Aperture





Hands on a wall in Essaouira, Morocco, 1985, by Bruno Barbey. The open hand is a symbol of good luck and protection from the evil eye. This image of palm prints was on the cover of the National Geographic centenary issue in July 1988. (Photo by Bruno Barbey/Magnum Photos)





American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach, D-Day, Normandy, France, 6 June 1944, by Robert Capa. “The water was cold, and the beach still more than a hundred yards away. The bullets tore holes in the water around me, and I made for the nearest steel obstacle ... It was still very early and very grey for good pictures, but the grey water and the grey sky made the little men, dodging under the surrealistic designs of Hitler’s anti-invasion brain trust, very effective”. Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus (1947). (Photo by Robert Capa/International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos)





Ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm, 1991, by Martin Parr. “In the early 80s, I was teaching in Helsinki and would often go to Stockholm for the weekend on the ferry. This would involve buying cheap alcohol and consuming it en route. The Finnish love a sauna, and this guy is popping out to catch the cool”. (Photo by Martin Parr/Magnum Photos)





The Beatles in EMI Recording Studios (later renamed Abbey Road Studios), London, England, 1964, by David Hurn. “In 1964, I was asked by my friend Richard Lester, who was about to direct the first Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, to photograph it, not for press, but more from a sociological point of view. My picture shows the four of them studying pages of the script for the following day’s shooting. They are in the Abbey Road Studio, the scene of so many of their musical triumphs”. (Photo by David Hurn/Magnum Photos)





Procession of nuns. Yangon, Myanmar, 1994, by Steve McCurry. “I asked a group of Buddhist nuns if I could follow them as they carried their alms bowls during their rounds through the streets of Yangon, Myanmar. They gather alms and food from local people, who donate in order to demonstrate their humility and connection with their Buddhist faith”. (Photo by Steve McCurry/Magnum Photos)





Behind the Walls #06, 2011 by Paolo Ventura. “Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, travelling musicians passed through the streets of the city where I lived as a child in the mid 70s. We ran to the balcony and threw coins to them. I remember one of these musicians had an old black hat with wide flaps. When we gave him coins he used to bow, take off his hat and make a beautiful movement with his arm while winking at my grandmother”. (Photo by Paolo Ventura/Courtesy Aperture)





The Ministry of Health Building, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1960, by Rene Burri. “The building was designed by architect Lúcio Costa’s team, which included Oscar Niemeyer. (Photo by Rene Burri/Magnum Photos)





David Bowie, Life on Mars, 1973 by Mick Rock. “David Bowie asked me to shoot a video for Life on Mars for its release as a single. I photographed him in the Freddie Burretti suit he wore for it with makeup by Pierre La Roche (who had styled him for the cover of Aladdin Sane). He never wore that suit again, never had that makeup on again. He never looked more amazing – like a space doll. A couple of months later he famously retired the androgynous Ziggy Stardust character, after which he started wearing a lot of tailored suits. This photograph catches him morphing from one look to another”. (Photo by Mick Rock/Rock Sale2018)





Backseat of a car, from the series, ‘Brooklyn Gang’ New York City, 1959, by Bruce Davidson. “You’re looking at Lefty and his girlfriend, members of a Brooklyn gang who referred to themselves as “The Jokers”, on a trip to Bear Mountain State Park. This photograph is not meant to be risque. These were young, teenage kids who had a great deal of spirit, energy and love in lives that were reckless, unstable and oftentimes dangerous. In the words of one: “We didn’t come from dysfunctional families, the whole neighbourhood was dysfunctional”. (Photo by Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos)





Del Rio, Texas, 2011 by Alec Soth. “Sam Shepard’s script for Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas begins: “A fissured, empty, almost lunar landscape–seen from a bird’s-eye view. The camera hovers over it.” I thought of this scene often while photographing from the rooftop of an RV in the border town of Del Rio, Texas. I also thought of the film’s opening lines: “Do you know which side of the border you’re on?” Looking at the otherworldly landscape from above, this question seems more metaphorical than geographic. The border I’m most interested in crossing is the one between ordinary life and dreams”. (Photo by Alec Soth/Magnum Photos)





Great Salt Lake, Utah, 2016, by Carolyn Drake. “The north arm of Utah’s Great Salt Lake stopped receiving fresh water over 50 years ago, when the Railroad built a causeway that split it in two, making the upper half incredibly saline, a haven for a red-algae called Dunaliella salina. A couple of months after I was there, a bridge was constructed allowing the water in the upper portion of the lake to mix with the fresher water in the lower lake, where another species of algae tints the water green. It is a picture of man in nature that feels strikingly unnatural; the natural order is askew”. (Photo by Carolyn Drake/Magnum Photos)





New York City, 1965, by Joel Meyerowitz. “A girl on a Vespa on her way to who knows where, when the light stopped her at the 72nd street crossing near the Dakota, where John Lennon would one day cross paths with his fate. She takes this moment to finesse a fingernail before she resumes her downtown journey, while I, stopping at the same crossing, but on foot, leap into the street to capture this vision of a dream girl before time takes her on her way”. (Photo by Joel Meyerowitz/Courtesy Aperture)